The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Film and Media

The chapters contained in this handbook address key issues concerning the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of violence in film and media. In addition to providing analyses of representations of violence, they also critically discuss the phenomenology of the spectator, images of atrocity in international cinema, affect and documentary, violent video games, digital infrastructures, cruelty in art cinema, and media and state violence, among many other relevant topics. The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Film and Media updates existing studies dealing with media and violence while vastly expanding the scope of the field. Representations of violence in film and media are ubiquitous but remain relatively understudied. Too often they are relegated to questions of morality, taste, or aesthetics while judgments about violence can themselves be subjected to moral judgment. Some may question whether objectionable images are worthy of serious scholarly attention at all. While investigating key examples, the chapters in this handbook consider both popular and academic discourses to understand how representations of violence are interpreted and discussed. They propose new approaches and raise novel questions for how we might critically think about this urgent issue within contemporary culture. Steve Choe is Associate Professor of Critical Studies in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Afterlives: Allegories of Film and Mortality in Early Weimar Germany (2014), Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium (2016), ReFocus: The Films of William Friedkin (2021), and is a co-editor of Beyond Imperial Aesthetics: Theories of Art and Politics in East Asia (2019) Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Introduction: The Ambivalences of Violence References Critical Models Equality in the Face of Violence?—Diverging Paths of Moral Speculation in Violent Fiction Enjoying and Questioning Fictional Violence Understanding and Relating to Characters Two Kinds of Drama Understanding The Equalizer16 Understanding Those Born Equal Simplistic vs. Complex Moral Fantasies Para- and Eso-Dramatic Features in The Equalizer and Born Equal Conclusion Notes Bibliography Violent Corporeality in Cinema Painful Violence Incapacitating Violence Momentous Violence Screen Violence Othered Corporeality Notes Works Cited The Power of Procedure: Systemic Violence in Popular Narratives About Crime and War Introduction: Nothing to See Here The Thin Blue Line: Systemic Violence in the Police Procedural The Green Machine: Systemic Violence in War Stories Habeas Corpus: Agency and the Problem of the Bloody Corpse Notes Works Cited Force, Power, and Control: Functions of Video Game Violence Shadow of the Colossus: The Textual Force of Video Game Violence Donkey Kong: Violence as a Figuration of Computing Power Control: Graphic(s) Violence as the “Outside” Note References White Material: Michael Haneke’s Ethics of Violence Notes References Histories of Violence in Film and Media “Man’s Greatest Catastrophe”: Violence in the Films of Cornel Wilde From Hollywood Leading Man to Independent Auteur Violent Themes Wilde’s Visual Transgressions Conclusion Notes Works Cited British Film Censorship in the Twenty-First Century Notes Bibliography Surgical Strikes on Screen: Narrations of Terrorism and Military Cross-Border Violence In Bollywood Cinema Bollywood Cinema and the Nationalist Narrative of Violence Imagined Extremities and Border Politics Terrorism and Narratives of Violence Emotions that Cross Borders: Rationalization of National Violence in Uri Aestheticization of Popular Violence and Jingoism Violence as a Medium for Political Propaganda Conclusion References Violence in the School Shooting Film Violent Media in the School Shooter Film Bullying in School Shooter Films Conclusion Notes References When a GIF Becomes a Weapon: The Latent Violence of Technological Standards and Media Infrastructure Photosensitive Epilepsy The Televisual Condition Television Standards and Electrical Infrastructure The Frail Universality of Universal Standards Neurology and Experimental Film Bodies on Display Conclusion Notes References The Aesthetics of Aggression Scratching the Surface: For a Reappraisal of Violence in Contemporary French Cinema Introduction: Understanding the Violent Image Reframing Violence, Rethinking Spectatorship Violence and the Female Body The Violence of Subjection, the Lure of Smoothness The Commodification of the Female Body: “Revenge” and the Violence of Patriarchy The Negation of Self: “Dans Ma Peau” and the Violence of a Globalized World “Raw”: Laying Bare the Violence of Social Structures Reinvesting One’s Skin: Rethinking Violence as a Mode of Resistance Smoothness, Cleanliness, and Femininity in a French Context Disrupting the Fetishist Gaze Through Violence Breaking the Status Quo: Violence and Self-Empowerment More Than Meets the Eye: Understanding the Unfolding of Violence Violence and the Disruption of the Commodifying Gaze Conclusion: Reappraising the Violent Image Notes References The Aesthetics of Asymmetrical Warfare: Cinema’s Representation of Conflict in the Twenty-First Century Forging the Gulf War Aesthetic Beyond the Gulf War, the Aesthetics of 21st Century Conflict Mediating Violence in a War of Ideas Beyond the Gulf War Aesthetic, the New Visibility of Violence Bibliography The Birth of Naturalist Violence in the Russian Chernukha Film Representation of Violence Before Perestroika Perestroika in the Soviet Film Industry Chernukha as Genre Chernukha’s Naturalist Violence Conclusion Notes Violence Framed: Remediating Images of Racialized Violence in Film Introduction: “With Whose Blood Were My Eyes Crafted?” Remediating White “Golden Age” Hollywood Remediating Lynching Pictures Conclusion Notes References Don’t Look Now: Ontologies of Off-Screen Violence The Horrific Imagination: Frenzy and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Ears and Teeth: The Function of Sound in Reservoir Dogs and American History X Off-Screen Deaths in Frenzy, Seven, and No Country for Old Men Conclusion References The Politics and Ethics of Brutal Media White and Violent: Political Violence in Twenty-First-Century European Cinema The Social Context The Cinematic Context Paradoxes of Political Violence: The Wave Young, Rebellious and Innocent: This is England Conclusions Works Cited Getting Over the Fear of Murder: Video Game Violence and the Ethics of Empowerment in The Last of Us Introduction Gameplay and Plot of The Last of Us “We’re Kind of Creating a Female Action Hero... and This is Her Origin Story”: Gender in The Last of Us Player Activity, Character Agency, and the Acquisition of Violence Moral Relativism in The Last of Us Empowerment in The Last of Us The Last of Us and the Racial Other Heteronormative Subjectification and the Oedipal Drama of The Last of Us Conclusion Notes References Unseeable Abuse: The Impossible Act of Visualising Childhood Sexual Abuse in Digital Cultures and Technology Introduction: Denying and Defining CSA The Digital Campfire: Considering the Myth-Making of Peter Scully and the Dark Web ‘Like Watching Child Abuse Through a Snow Storm’: Understanding the Position of CSA as Non-cinema Conclusion References Re-staging Atrocities in a Post-historical World: Cold War Violence, Mass Amnesia, and the Dialectics of Cinematic Witnessing in Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence Introduction The Act of Killing: Atrocity, Complicity, and Impunity The “Banality of Evil” Re-visioned The Look of Silence: Moral Blindness and the Impasses of Testimonies Coda: Can the Witnesses Speak? Notes Works Cited Politics and Aesthetics of Violence in the Videos of the Islamic State Introduction Beheadings Other Forms of Executions and the Emergence of the Image-Database Victims of the Coalition War Operations Conclusions Notes References Affected Audiences Disgust and the Image: Documentary Film and the Representation of Violent Extremists in Salafistes (2016) Salafistes: Critics and Controversy Disgusting Images? Disgust and Political Community Truth and Images of Violence Extremism on Screen: Concluding Thoughts Note Bibliography “Does the Dog Die?”: Nonhuman Violence and Affective Viewership in American Horror Cinematic Affect as Humanist Enterprise Audience Affect and the Sacrificial Dog Does the Dog Die? is a Human Question—and a Trigger The Sacrificial Dog as Horror Trope The Dog Does Not Die Notes References Sadistic Laughter: A Case for “Non-ethical” Viewing Introduction: Emotion and Affect Vomit as a Confession of the Body Well, I Could Laugh, or Be Sick ... Conclusion: A Framework of Dissonance Notes Bibliography Real violence: Jordan Wolfson, Virtual Reality, and the Privilege of Allegory Center of the Artworld: 2017 Whitney Biennial “The Most Disturbing, Horrifying Artwork I Have Ever Seen”3 Vision & Reality Art and/as Violence Real Real Violence Affect, Reality, and Violence Conclusion Notes References A Personal Memoir of Death in Animation Deathlessness in Classical Hollywood Animation What’s Opera, Doc? Koncert Za Mašinsku Pušku Conclusion Notes References Index "The chapters contained in this handbook address key issues concerning the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of violence in film and media. In addition to providing analyses of representations of violence, they also critically discuss the phenomenology of the spectator, images of atrocity in international cinema, affect and documentary, violent video games, digital infrastructures, cruelty in art cinema, and media and state violence, among many other relevant topics. The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Film and Media updates existing studies dealing with media and violence while vastly expanding the scope of the field. Representations of violence in film and media are ubiquitous but remain relatively understudied. Too often they are relegated to questions of morality, taste, or aesthetics while judgments about violence can themselves be subjected to moral judgment. Some may question whether objectionable images are worthy of serious scholarly attention at all. While investigating key examples, the chapters in this handbook consider both popular and academic discourses to understand how representations of violence are interpreted and discussed. They propose new approaches and raise novel questions for how we might critically think about this urgent issue within contemporary culture."--Back cover